I was looking at weird NFL plays online today and one thing especially caught my attention (and it wasn't the Doug Flutie drop kick extra point!) I saw a youtube video of Neil Rackers kicking a "free kick field goal". I had never heard of this rule but apparently it goes something like this:

If you fair catch a punt, you are able to put the ball at the line of scrimmage (with a person to hold the ball required) and take a free kick at the field goal. No linemen set up, and you appear to have all the time in the world.

It is not really useful unless the opponent is pinned close to their own endzone with less than 10 seconds on the clock and forced to punt. Then, the ball would have to be inside your own 40 yard line to have a legitimate chance.

You can check it out on youtube, the only ones I have found are an epic fail by Neil Rackers of 68 yards, and a Mason Crosby nearly converted 69 yard attempt.

It's a low percentage proposition, but a handful have been made. The announcer was wrong. The last successful conversion was in 1976 (the year of Desertskin's birth) by Ray Wersching who was kicking for the Chargers at the time. The Bears have converted one... in 1964 by the great Paul Hornung.

Circumstances of use. A fair catch kick is very rarely attempted, as only a specific combination of circumstances makes it advantageous for the receiving side. The punt or free kick must be fair-caught at a point close enough to make a field goal attempt plausible. There will usually be insufficient time to run more than one play from scrimmage, so is only likely to be seen when the punt would otherwise be the last or next-to-last play of the half. If occurring in the second half, the receiving team would presumably be tied or trailing by three points or fewer so that a successful field goal is significant. Finally, when these rare circumstances are present, a well-coached kicking team should recognize that it is not in their best interests to allow their opponents to make a successful fair catch. They may thus employ any of several tactics to avoid that outcome, such as deliberately kicking the ball out of bounds or far away from any opponent, or running a non-punting play from scrimmage that allows the game clock to expire safely.

In the NFL, a fair catch kick may still be attempted if the half ends on the fair catch play. This is not automatic; a team's captain or coach must exercise this option.

There are several reasons to prefer a fair catch kick to a normal field goal attempt from scrimmage. A fair catch kick is taken from the same yard-line of the catch rather than the usual seven to eight yards back. The defending team must remain 10 yards downfield before the kick. This allows the placekicker a full running start rather than the normal two-step approach, with no concerns about a poor snap from center or a low angle of trajectory that might allow the defense to block the kick.

Known attempts in the NFL. All attempts in this list are from National Football League games. The "Game time" column shows the time remaining in minutes and seconds, and the number of the quarter.

Seems to me that this kick is an alternative to a hail-mary last-play pass. I remember that being the reason George Allen tried it.

Another alternative to the hail-mary is to throw short, but only to a receiver who can run like Bobby Mitchell. Look up the You-tube: Mitchell catches last-minute pass against the Browns, who had beaten the Redskins every game for about six or seven years, and who had traded Mitchell to the Skins for the rights to Ernie Davis. Norm Snead threw medium to Mitchell, who was running right to left, then cut back left to right, had all the great Browns grabbing at air and falling over.